General Information
History of French Railways
A brief history of France's railways is available via this link
Locomotive & rolling stock data
The Platform 5 European Handbook No. 4 ‘French Railways - Locomotives and & Multiple Units’ by David Haydock provides detailed technical and fleet information on the current SNCF and private operator fleets, along with data on preserved locomotives. The monthly Platform 5 journal ‘Todays Railways - Europe’ contains details of fleet changes and other news. The ‘Espace Material’ section of the website Trains du Sud-Ouest contains details of the current and former SNCF diesel and electric fleet, and data on the SNCF passenger coach fleet.http://www.trainsso.fr
Locomotive passenger hauled trains continue to decline. The main concentrations are in Eastern France (Alsace, AURA and PACA), From Paris the Intercite services to Clermont-Ferrand and Toulouse, Ouigo Classique services and a small number of rush hour services from Gare du Nord and St Lazare and Austerlitz. Also the Marseille - Toulouse - Bordeaux Intercite and overnight services. A request via the io group is likely to provide information on the current position.
On the freight side the position is quite complex with a number of operators. Locomotives often work across borders particularly from Belgium and Germany. The large operators tend to have a mixed fleet of owned and leased locomotives while the smaller operators tend to lease. Leased locomotives tend to change hands quite regularly and can be seen in the livery of a previous operator
Locomotive passenger hauled trains continue to decline. The main concentrations are in Eastern France (Alsace, AURA and PACA), From Paris the Intercite services to Clermont-Ferrand and Toulouse, Ouigo Classique services and a small number of rush hour services from Gare du Nord and St Lazare and Austerlitz. Also the Marseille - Toulouse - Bordeaux Intercite and overnight services. A request via the io group is likely to provide information on the current position.
On the freight side the position is quite complex with a number of operators. Locomotives often work across borders particularly from Belgium and Germany. The large operators tend to have a mixed fleet of owned and leased locomotives while the smaller operators tend to lease. Leased locomotives tend to change hands quite regularly and can be seen in the livery of a previous operator
Current operations
There is no equivalent of Real Time Trains in France. The nearest is the SNCF Connect app. This shows how passenger trains are running by using the train number or the Arrivals and Departure boards of stations en route. This will also show the type of rolling stock being used. Generally a train shown in grey means it is locomotive hauled
SNCFRailGen https://groups.io/g/SNCFRailGen and European Rail Gen
https://groups.io/g/europeanrailare two groups where members post sightings and other information about the current locomotive hauled scene. The files sections of these sites also include the latest known diagrams for locomotive hauled passenger workings.
Timetables (domestic services)
SNCF currently operate virtually all domestic services in France. (Trenitalia currently operate between Paris and Lyon and Transdev will take over Nice to Marseille TER services from June 2025) The Intercite medium distance services are sponsored by the government, and the local TER services by the regions. SNCF is keen for customers to do everything on-line from train enquiries to ticket purchase, with tickets downloaded onto a smart-phone. There are fewer guichets, where you can buy tickets over the counter and most have a long wait. Some cheaper services Ouigo and Ouigo Classique can only be booked on-line. The once common paper timetables for each route have now been discontinued, although still produced by a few TERs.
The SNCF journey planner https://www.voyages-sncf.com can be far from user-friendly for long journeys. Drawbacks include time of day parameters that are too narrow, and the refusal of the system to accept a journey with more than two or three changes. It has a strong preference for SNCF TGV services, even if this involves a circuitous route.
The best point-to-point on-line 'journey planner' timetable is the Deutsche Bahn HAFAS Europe-wide timetable database. It can be accessed in English or French, although the original German is fairly self-explanatory.
Traditional timetables can be downloaded from the ‘Horaires & Trafic and Fiches Horaires’ section of individual TER sites. There is normally a drop down box in the ‘Ligne’ section showing the tables available in pdf format. These also normally show Inter-cites services operating over TER routes. Given SNCF’s practice of suspending train services for engineering work it is is prudent to also check via a journey planner or the relevant ‘Travaux’ section. If the required table is not available it might be found by selecting an individual station site (put SNCF and station name into google) as these also have links to relevant pdf tables.
For Paris RER services the SNCF Transilien site at the link below allows the PDF timetables for RER lines A - U to be downloaded. Stay on the French language site as selecting English will move you to information about travel cards (that may also be useful)https://www.transilien.com/fr/itineraire
Maps, track and signalling information.
The SNCF Reseau website contains a wide range of maps covering the current French network. This can be accessed at:
https://www.sncf-reseau.com/fr/cartes. A wide selection of historical maps are available on Wikipedia
For those interested in rare and sparsely used track the EGTRE (Enthusiast's Guide to Travelling the Railways of Europe) contains a lot of useful information including detailed track diagrams.
A very useful explanation of French mechanical and colour light signals can be found at.https://www.sh1.org/sncf/index.htm
The Wikipedia site at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_railway_signalling also contains illustrations of both mechanical and colour signals and the various warning boards used in France
Photographs of Lartigue repeater signals and block instruments are shown on https://www.nicospilt.com/index_sncf_beveiliging.htm
Preservation
France's heritage and tourist railway association UNECTO (Union des Exploitants de Chemins de Fer et touristiques et de Musees) operates the https://en.lafrancevuedurail.fr website that lists all of France's preservation sites, including railtour operators. There is also a list of forthcoming events although this is not particularly comprehensive.
